Seeing Red...and Blue...and Green...

While I was away at the beach, edits came in on a recent story. It's a short, so I figured it was no big deal and I'd be able to tackle them pretty quickly. Now, to give you some perspective, when I'm really on, I can edit a short in a day or two. Then I opened the file.

Holy highlights, Batman!

There was...a lot. And I knew without a doubt I needed more than a couple days of sneaking away from family time to get it done. Most editors who have worked with me (and talked to me while I was editing) know that I can tackle big issues pretty handily. Editor points out a problem, I slap my hand against my forehead, wonder how I could have been so stupid as to not see the problem, and I get to work on fixing it. It's the little things that give me fits. (I'm sure Gina remembers well when I was working on edits in Italy and had one sentence that I couldn't get right. She told me to skip it. I refused, and the answer came to me while trying to sleep on the flight home.) And almost everything I needed to fix in this story was a little thing.

My intense love for edits (yes, I'm weird) quickly turned into a lot of loud groaning about not wanting to do it. You see, I had this illusion that the more stories I had published, the easier edits would get because I'd have been learning to fix all those stupid things I did wrong. The fact is I appear to replace one stupid thing with something new. My "that" problem? Tackled. Gone. Over. (Believe me, it took a long time.) Now I have things that can't be solved with a simple "delete".

But you know what? I'm seeing the tail end of this round of edits now--I'll finish them today--and as much as I hate to say it, I think it was a good experience for me. First, it made me realize there will always be something in need of fixing. That's a really freeing thought. I'm going to screw up, so I just need to worry about writing. Second, I found that even some of the little things need to be fought for. A suggested change of wording to something that your character would never use., a turn of phrase that your betas all loved, intentional use of passive structure--all of those things can be important. The point of edits is to figure out when they're most important, because that's when you dig your heels in (which is hard to do when you haven't made a bunch of other suggested changes--makes you seem like a diva :P).

Now that I've struggled through all the itty-bitty detailed changes, I can say I still love doing edits. I'm hoping when I do my read-through before hitting send later today, I'll be able to smile and say the changes made the story stronger. Because that's the point of all the moaning, groaning, hand-wringing, cursing, and throwing of things--to make it better.

In the meantime, I'll repaint the target on my office wall for the next round of throwing thi...er edits.

Putting in the Work

So, a few weeks ago, I was getting a story ready to submit. I told my editor that she'd have it as soon as I'd finished with revisions. At that moment, it was out with my wonderful betas for a read-through so I could fix any glaring issues before I sent it in. She said (paraphrased), "You don't revise until after I edit it."


Then, at a totally separate time, I was talking to a fellow author (who shall remain unnamed) about one of her shorter works. She basically said that she didn't put as much time into it since it was just supposed to be a quickie--a break from her novels.


Needless to say, I was...confused.

You see, I have a process I go through before I send anything in for publication. I write. I revise. Maybe twice. For longer pieces, I might post part in my online writing group and wait for critiques (to revise again). I send to my betas. I wait for their comments. I revise. Then, if the revisions were big, I send it back to them to make sure it's solid. If not, I revise again. Then...sometime after that, I send it in.

I do this for my novel-length stories. I do this for my novellas. I do this for my short stories. Hell, if I'm worried about it, I do something similar for my flash fiction before I post it on the blog. I cannot imagine sending my rough drafts to my editors. Even thinking about it has me breaking out in a cold sweat right now. You see, as much as I love my editors and think they're awesome, I want as many eyes as I can reasonably get on my manuscript before it goes out. And I feel that way about all my stories; I don't differentiate by length (though, I will say that just because they are longer and therefore have more room for "issues", novel-length stories tend to go through more revisions than shorts).

Based on similar comments from both an editor and another author, however, I'm starting to think I might be in the minority with regard to these habits. I know in digital publishing, output is important. If you can't churn out stories fast enough, you can be forgotten as new authors pop up. But the idea of putting anything out there that is less than the best I can make it bothers me...a lot. This isn't to say that other people don't write crazy-good first drafts with no inconsistencies or weak spots or grammar issues because I'm sure some people do, but I'm not at the point yet where I can delude myself into thinking I'm one of them.

So, if you've been waiting on Badlands 2 or the next Blood Kissed story, consider this my apology for the delay. I want to get those stories to you. I just don't want to cut corners to do it, and for me it would be cutting corners (believe me, my betas are phenomenal and not at all afraid to tell me when I suck). Please forgive the delay, and hopefully I can work on that whole prolific thing in the meantime.

Find me at RT!

I've been talking about it for a while, but tomorrow I finally take of for the Romantic Times Booklovers' Convention in LA! This is my first con as a published author and I'm really geeked. Not only will I get the chance to meet a lot of my author friends I only know from online, but I get to meet people--real people!-- who read my books. Crazy excited about it. So, if you are one of those readers who wants to meet me, I'm going to give a list of activities I'll definitely be at (bolded) and others I'll probably be at so you can find me.

Tuesday:

8pm (I think)--Decadent Publishing's field trip to the Viper Room to see Run Devil Run.

Wednesday:

Morning--at the agent/editor pitches, seeing who I can see :)

Afternoon--various panels

3:25 pm -- I'll probably at least pop into the Carina Press publisher spotlight

6:30 pm-- Saucy Siren's through History

9 pm -- Ellora's Cave Bollywood Party

Thursday

Morning--at the agent/editor pitches, seeing who I can see :)

Afternoon--various panels

8:30pm--Venetian Masquerade Faery Ball




Friday

Morning--unknown

1:30pm--Club RT briefly for Decadent Publishing spotlight

2:45pm--Steampunk Social

4:00pm--E-book Expo (signing)

6:00pm--Avon's Dusk to Dark Mixer

8:00pm--Vampire Ball

Saturday

11:00am--Giant Book Fair (Signing as YA writer-me, Julie Particka)

5:00pm--Mr. Romance Competition

8:00pm--Carina Press Cocktail Hour

9:00pm--Harlequin Hollywood Glam party

If you're going to be there, I hope you pop by and say hi at some point!

Arrogance, Men and Romantic Times

Because if that title doesn't get me hits, I don't know what will.

Just kidding. Today's blog is going to be a bit of a mishmash, so please bear with me. Maybe by the end it'll all come together in some brilliant epiphany about the meaning of life.

Yeah. I kind of doubt it too.

One of my beta readers loves to point out how arrogant she thinks a particular character of mine is. I actually find it funny, because I see him as more...childish than arrogant, but she detests him because of it. This led me to thinking about arrogance in men in general, and I came to the conclusion that for me very few guys can pull off arrogance. Most look like complete assholes, but every once in a while it works (generally when accompanied by some sort of insecurity, but that's another story). So last night I asked twitter if they found arrogance appealing in the opposite sex, whether real or fictional people. The results weren't surprising, but were a little interesting.

Nicole said:

Is arrogance sexy/appealing? Not to me. Not even if it's deserved or understandable.

Andrea agreed:

No... not at all. One of the most off-putting qualities. Pretty much insures I'll hate them. Real and fictional...

Danielle was a little more forgiving:

It can be, but you have to be careful not to cross the line into asshole territory.

As was PJ:

A little arrogance at the right time can be insanely sexy. Too much and it gets to be a turn off real quick.

Laura differentiated between fictional and real:

I think arrogance is more appealing in a fictional character than in reality. Confidence is better in RL. But it's a fine line to walk.

Renae said much the same thing:

Appealing? No. Much more forgivable in fictional characters, but, I'll never say "if only he was more arrogant, he'd be hot"

Kelly was the most in tune with arrogance:

I usually go for the alpha guys in real life and in fictional characters. Arrogance is part of the package

Interestingly enough, all of the answers I got from men said no.

From Ken:

Confidance, snark, and a sharp wit = yes. Arrogance crosses the line and is generally a no.

Of course, I had to ask if acknowledging one had the first three by default made them arrogant. Apparently that could go either way. Hmmm...

But like everything, it seems people can't all agree on the appeal of arrogance. I debated doing a second poll with the same people asking them to rank their own arrogance, but that seemed even less scientific than the initial poll, so I quit while I was ahead.

On the topic of arrogant men, however, I'm getting ready to get my male model fix for the year. I know, I know, they aren't all arrogant--some are just really, really, really confident. Anyway...I leave for RT in twelve days. My last RT post, I had seventeen weeks! Now I'm down to less than two. All those fabulous promo plans...uh...not happening this year. What I want to do frankly cost too much to pull off with the revenue only coming in from a few shorts. Maybe by Authors After Dark this summer, but not for RT. I will have at least one project ready to pitch, maybe two (one adult, one YA). Even though the panel I'd planned for didn't happen, the lovely ladies at Steamed invited me to be part of the steampunk social on Friday, so I'm very geeked about that.

Right now though, I'm at the point I'm just trying to keep my head screwed on straight so I make sure everything is done and ready to go when I take off to drop the kids at my mom's house. Because once I leave here, if I've forgotten it, I just have to do without, which won't make me a happy camper.

So...what do I need to remember to take with me? (One of my lovely editors arranged for another of my lovely editors to pick up my vodka for me in advance, so WOOT! there will be booze!)

Manuscript, Interrupted

One of the rules I live by as a writer is when one project is done, I start another one. Especially in e-publishing, authors are expected to be prolific, so there's no time to rest on one's laurels. That means after I signed my contracts, I got back to work.

When I was in Myrtle Beach, I started a new paranormal romance. For a while it went really well. Unfortunately, I was pantsing the story, and I reached about 10k and kind of stalled. Pantsing never has really worked for me though, and I proceeded to take a day and plot the rest of the story. Got back to work and cranked out about another 10-15k.

Then, about a week before I left for Toronto (yes, it's been a busy couple months for travel), I received the first round of edits for Badlands. Obviously, I dropped the new story to take care of edits. Then I left for Toronto. So I was away from the new story for about two weeks.

Once I got home, I tried to work on it again, but the momentum I'd had disappeared. I still made progress, but it was much slower going. I finally broke the 30k mark a few days before leaving on my next trip, and then the line edits on Badlands showed up in my inbox.

I knew once I stopped working on it so I could do edits, I'd be starting all over with regard to forward momentum. Considering I have a holiday story I need to get to as well, I finally made the decision to set aside the new manuscript until I'm back from this trip. Instead, I'm taking the week to focus on the line edits, some critiquing and the holiday story.

For those who are wondering, it's a Jocelyn holiday story, and part of the reason I'm willing to sideline other things for it is that people seem to like and want more of her story. This is me doing my best to give it to them. Hopefully the Powers that Be like it.

By the next post, I should be home, and hopefully that will mean Jocelyn's new story is done and I will get back to the sidelined manuscript until it's finished. But as long as the story is working at all, I won't quit on it. I hope it finds a home and that my fans and friends will get to see another side of my writing.

So what's derailed your writing lately?

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Super Saturday!

Apologies for the delay in getting this up, family stuff on the other side of the state kept me busy until now. There are a couple things going on today.

In publishing news, the first round of edits on Badlands is done. I finished the read-through and will be sending it sent to my editor momentarily. This is the point where I ask everyone to cross their fingers for me that she's happy with what I did.

Second, my friend, Mr. Romance Jamie Ungaro is in this competition for a role on Mad Men. It's a walk-on, but as a model and aspiring actor, it's a foot in the door. There's only a couple weeks left in the first round of voting, but if you could help him out and vote, that would be awesome. You can vote once a day until September 6, when it goes to other judges. Here's the link to vote for him: http://madmencastingcall.amctv.com/browse/detail/LE6QKM , and if you're interested in knowing more about Jamie, there are a couple recent interviews here and here

And finally, the moment some of you have been waiting for. Last night ended the launch party contest. There were a couple last minute entries, and I would like to thank everyone for entering. A special thanks to those of you that bought stories from Decadent (especially mine, since I'm greedy like that). We're a new company, and word of mouth is huge at this point, so if you read a story from a Decadent author and liked it, please spread the word. In fact, Amazon reviews and blog reviews will help us out a lot.

Oh, yeah, you want to know who won. After gathering comments and receipts, I listed all of them in the order they came in, then used random.org to pick our two lucky winners. First winner gets first dibs on the books, second winner gets the other.

The first number pulled belonged to… Jessica Peter! Jess, please toss me an email with your mailing address and your preference of books.

The second number belonged to… Bea! Please send me your mailing address.

Thanks again everyone!

Revision Hell?

After holding my breath waiting for edits to come on "Of Course I Try", they came Friday afternoon just a few hours before we were due to leave for vacation. Needless to say, I opened the file with my nerves strung more than a little tight. My kids were going nutty, and since it was a short, I really wanted to get the revisions done before we left.

I had three hours.

Eep.

But I opened the file and dove in. Here's what I learned from this first foray into working with an editor on revisions (keep in mind, this was a short story and I wasn't asked to make any story changes):

-       Do the easy stuff first. If they changed your punctuation or mention that it's (no I didn't do this, it's just an example) bated breath, not baited breath, those are easy things to accept or reject. Getting these things off the edge will dramatically decrease the amount of work staring you in the face.

-       Word repetition. In this particular story, there were a few of them done for effect, and I thought my uber-betas had caught the rest, but my editor, Kate, found a bunch more. She said I could leave them if I really wanted them, but I think I only left one. The rest were easy enough to tweak, and that slashed a bunch more work.

-       By this point, I was left with the bigger things. (Which in this case weren't huge. I mean it's only a short story.) Those got tackled one at a time.

-       Then I went back and gave it another read-through and filled in a couple places where I'd felt something was missing.

Done. That was it. Patient and methodical got me through the revisions in time to answer Kate's question about one thing I'd left that confused her and still leave on time for vacation.

I'm not delusional, really. I know that revisions won't always be this easy, but all things considered it wasn't a bad experience at all, even with the crazy time frame. In fact, even knowing the next one is a longer piece that will probably need more intensive work, I'm looking forward to my next editorial experience.

So, revision hell? Not so much.

Either that or it just brings out my demonic side and makes me feel right at home.

News! And a cover!

I recently revised and submitted this old short story I had in my files. The problem (as I so often have) is it was too romancey for a lot of markets, but I wasn’t sure it would be romancey enough for others. The thing was it had romance, but again, not the lovey-dovey variety. It wasn’t a pretty story. It’s harsh — some might even say dark. (Okay, yeah, it’s dark )

When I first wrote it, “Of Course I Try” clocked in at somewhere under 1300 words. It was super short, but I wrote it for a challenge with a 1500 word cap. The revision brought it up to just under 2k.

I got a response from the e-publisher I'd selected to sub to the same day I sent it in. They liked it, but it was too short. Did I have a longer (5k+) version? I didn’t, but I emailed back that I’d work on it. That was Friday. I spent that night and the next developing the story, adding some history and the entire thing more depth. At first, I was nervous. I liked the original story. It was tight and fast and had a very high tension level. But when I was done, I realized that while the original worked on one level, the new version gave so much more.

Then again, I still wasn’t sure how other people would feel about it. I sent it to a couple beta readers who were speedy and awesome (Thanks PJ & Janelle!).  So, Monday rolled around, and I had a shiny new version of the story (5600 words) and a longer synopsis. I sent it wondering if I’d just wasted my weekend.

Monday night I got a response along the lines of “great story”, but there was no contract or deal attached. I stared at it for a long time trying to figure out what it meant. I lasted until the next day when I sent an email asking if that meant they wanted it — LOL. The answer came back as a yes, and I started filling out the contract and paperwork immediately. Everything was sent in Wednesday.

I’m happy to say that not only has Decadent Publishing acquired “Of Course I Try”, but I even have cover art to share with you! Dara managed to capture Max almost like she stepped into my brain and snapped a picture.

I want to thank Lisa, Heather, and (the super-speedy) Dara. This is a great opportunity and I get to be published alongside some really good friends. I can’t wait for the August first launch.

And before you ask, I don’t have a release date for the story yet. Though if Lisa or Heather happen in here, maybe they could help with that.